Rosan: The lights flickered but the love never dimmed

My tentative foray into uncharted journalistic waters commenced Jan. 9, 2011, with the penning of my first column titled “Bars Are Different.” That stab at opinion-based prose was a trial balloon of sorts for the columnist selection committee comprised of the wise souls charged with critiquing my initial endeavor. As I look back on the process I can only assume the selection committee either didn’t meet or had become totally angst-ridden by my first submission. It was over a month before my second effort titled “Case Illustrates Flaws in Medical Marijuana Law” appeared. With the publication of that second missive I received the blessing and subsequent coronation from the selection committee who propelled me towards the unknown with their good wishes and mischievous grins.

Carol, the woman I married in 1990, appeared in the third column wherein I chronicled her expertise in speaking a special language which I had dubbed “Bingo-speak.” In celebration of her birthday that February, Carol and I, along with several friends, strolled into the crowded but eerily silent Bingo hall at the Soaring Eagle Casino. I dutifully followed my spouse like a lost puppy as she wove a path through the noiseless mass of humanity. We finally made it to the front of the emporium where she engaged the cashier in some strange language. The gibberish was unrecognizable and I stared like she was speaking in tongues at some Pentecostal revival meeting. When she noticed my dumbfounded look she explained: “you just have to know the lingo.”

As regular readers will attest, Carol’s name has become a staple during the run of this eclectic mix of experimental journalism. In spite of assuring her many times that I have made her famous she remains unfazed and largely unimpressed. In fact she delights in telling everyone that if her name appears in a column anything following it is creative fiction derived from an overactive imagination.

Okay, there may have been some times when a tad of literary license has factored into the mix but it has all been in good fun, and in spite of her protestations Carol is famous! If you don’t believe it, just ask me. I have told lots of stories but this one about Bob and his daughter is the best one yet.

Advertisement

Robert Neil DeYoung was born on Aug. 10, 1924, and exactly 90 years later Bob and his daughter attended a celebration held in his honor at the Masonic Pathways in Alma, Mich. Since this event was scheduled on Bob’s birthday he was placed right up front, but he didn’t have much to say as he let others speak for him. Throughout Bob’s life he was always a quiet and gentle man who, with his wife Pearl, raised a son and a daughter. Bob was a World War II veteran and after his discharge and 1948 marriage to Pearl, his entire career was spent working for the same company as an accountant. Now here he was, in front of friends, family and acquaintances and he was unable to vocalize his thanks to all who had gathered in his honor. Bob’s silence wasn’t a problem though because everyone there understood that he had arrived at this place after a very long and tiresome journey.

This event was special indeed because it was a celebration of Bob’s life which had come to a peaceful conclusion on Aug. 3, 2014. Bob’s daughter is my wife Carol and over the course of the last three years she steadfastly stood by her father while enduring an emotional and prolonged goodbye as dementia extinguished the lights for Bob one flicker at a time. It was Memorial Day weekend 2011 when Carol’s parents were each rushed to the hospital from their home in Grandville. Bob had pneumonia and Pearl received a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. Somehow Carol arranged to have them each admitted to Masonic Pathways where her mother died four days later. Summer 2011 was a blur but after that initial chaos had subsided I watched as a special bond between Carol and her father became unbreakable. There were good days and bad days but the good days were special with Bob and Carol taking full advantage of them. She often repeated a quote from our minister who had described dementia as Swiss cheese with the holes moving around each day. On the bad days she could simply have walked away but instead Carol, along with Max, our retired therapy dog, made a point to visit other patients and staff. Even though she had every right to feel down, I never saw her come back from a visit with her father where she wasn’t upbeat. This is the same woman who started a Sunday tradition with a group of male patients that became known as “Pie with the Guys.” Each week she waltzed onto the memory care wing with a pie in hand and rounded up her guys much like a mother duck. It wasn’t long before she would have her troupe intrigued with an iPad as she called up friends to speak with the guys face-to-face. This is also the same woman who hired a harp player to perform Christmas carols throughout the complex as a very special and unique Christmas gift to her father.

Music was always important to Bob and it wouldn’t surprise me that as his last light began to dim he was quietly humming “Happy Days are Here Again.”

“A daughter is a little girl who grows up to be a friend.” -Unknown

Les Rosan is a Morning Sun columnist. His e-mail is LRInvestigations@charter.net.